|
Tool Centre |
Tool Inside |
|
Tool Outside |
Offset |
|
|
www.kxcad.net Home > CAM Index > EdgeCAM Index >
Note that some of the options in this tab may be unavailable, depending on your licence.
Minimum/Maximum Contact Angle - At a point on a surface the contact angle is the angle between the normal to the surface and the tool axis (vertical). ('Surface' being used in the generic sense; includes surfaces within solid models.)
Only the regions where the contact angle is within the Minimum and Maximum values are machined.
You can specify angles between 0 and 90, except for Minimum Contact Angle which can only be up to 85. The defaults are 0 (min) and 90 (max). The minimum and maximum contact angles cannot be the same value, and they are automatically switched if you specify a Maximum value lower than the Minimum value.
If these settings break the toolpath into separate regions, the normal rules for leads, links and ordering are applied to each region and the move between the regions.
Boundary Control
At the prompt to 'Digitise containment boundaries...', you can select closed loop geometry within which to contain the toolpath. The Containment is in the XY plane, so for the settings below, imagine you are looking vertically downwards at the toolpath and containment boundaries (that is looking down the CPL Z axis towards the origin). See an illustration of the settings....
Tool Control - Set the part of the tool that you want to control the position of, relative to the Containment Boundaries. Choose from:
Tool Centre - The path of the centre of the tool is kept within the containment boundary.
Tool Inside - No part of the tool can go outside the containment boundary.
Tool Outside - The tool can go outside the containment boundary by the diameter of the tool.
Offset - For the effective containment boundary, an amount to expand (positive values) or contract (negative values) the digitised containment boundary geometry. This is a 2D expansion in the XY plane.
